Take a Stand
by garfieldodie
Summary: AU. Alternate ending to Terrorform. Repairs what I thought was irritating.


**Author's Notes: **_Okay, so, I've always had a dislike for the episode _Terrorform_. It all stems from the fact that Lister, Cat and Kryten all treat Rimmer's self-hatred as some disease, and as such, they get angry with him for having it in the first place. I've never felt that was fair. I could accept this stupid approach from the Cat, maybe, but not from Lister, who can never come to understand that Rimmer is a person with feelings. So I tend to find the ending of this episode to just be some sort of sick joke._

_So, I've written what I feel would've been a superior ending._

_Read on..._

* * *

Rimmer could only sit there, listening to them.

He had just been rescued from being tortured and oiled and nearly scalded by a branding iron. Now he was sitting here, listening to them talking about how wonderful they thought he was.

For just a few moments, and there weren't many of them altogether, he felt good. He felt excellent. He felt like there was some sort of power surging through him.

But then, as per usual, something pulled the plug on his emotional bathtub and let it all swirl away down the drain with a horrible gurgling noise when he heard Holly say something about getting some lift.

He stood and began to walk away from them. "Wait a minute. I know why you're doing this."

"Going down," Holly said, disappointedly.

Rimmer carefully formulated his next few sentences before he said them.

"You're trying to make me feel guilty, aren't you? It's a transparent attempt to shame me into doing the honorable thing."

Of course it isn't.

They pretend to look hurt.

"No, it's not that at all!"

"What would make you think that?!"

He narrowed his eyes at them.

"So why is it then?"

Lister looked rather sincere for a moment. "Our number's up here, and I don't want to go out without setting the record straight! It's not easy saying this, one man to another, but… I love you, man, I really, really love you."

Rimmer stared.

Holly didn't announce they're getting more lift.

In fact, she said the opposite.

"We're still going down," she said, sounding rather worried.

There was a light bit of confusion going across the others' faces, but Rimmer continued to glare head-on at Lister.

It was deathly silent.

Then Rimmer took two long slow strides towards Lister.

The other man looked at him with some visible apprehension.

The only thing on Rimmer's mind was: _I have a body_.

He punched him.

Lister let out a yelp as he went flailing backwards over a crate and landed hard on his back.

There was more silence.

It was even tenser than before.

Cat and Kryten stared at Lister's body on the ground, watching him writhe in agony, holding his possibly broken nose. Then they stared at Rimmer, who was standing stock still, not even bothering to hold his sore fist.

Instead, he then fixed an angry stare on the Cat, who backed away suddenly at his severe look. The very thought of someone assaulting his beautiful face made him cringe.

But Rimmer didn't lay into him. He decided the Cat was the only one with the decency to be kind of truthful with him.

So instead he glared at Kryten, who seemed to pick up on the anger and tried to quell it.

"Now, Mr Rimmer, just take it easy and calm down."

These words did not stop the spanner from flying through the air and smacking the mechanoid in face, causing the mech to short-circuit and sputter gibberish for a moment before normal transmission resumed.

And then Holly seemed to perk up.

"Oop! We're going up again!"

But she was silenced by Rimmer, who glared harshly at her, and for once, she felt fearful under his authoritative gaze, wondering if he planned to take another spanner to her screen.

But he didn't, or at least, he didn't get a chance to if he was planning on it, because Lister finally found his voice.

"Rimmer, what the hell, man?" he gasped, confident his nose wasn't very far off.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow, almost challenging him to speak again.

Challenge accepted.

"What, I tell you I love you and you punch me in the face?"

"'I love you'?" Rimmer repeated the phrase mockingly, rage bubbling deep inside him. "That's what you went with? 'I love you'? '_I love you_'?"

His expression darkened.

"Fuck you."

Eyes all around the room widened, stunned at a real curse word suddenly being used. No more pussyfooting around it. "Smeg" has left the building.

"You honestly believe I'm going to buy into this crap?" he continued, disbelief latent in his tones. "You honestly think I'm going to fall for this stupid joke therapy session? You _dare _to think that you can just _toy _with my _emotions_? Who the fuck do you think you are? A soap opera?"

Kryten again tried to calm him down.

"Sir, please, we were only concerned –"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, you Bog Bot from Hell! This was all _your_ idea, wasn't it? _You're _the one who came up with all this, aren't you?"

Kryten began to squirm slightly as Rimmer slowly approached him, accusation etched in his features. "Sir, honestly, I was only…"

"You only thought you were fucking _Data _and that you had all the bloody answers as per usual, _didn't you_?!"

Now Kryten was silenced.

"You honestly think human emotions are so _simple_? You honestly take me for such a _fool_? Well guess what? _We're a bit more complex than that! _Just because Lister's the only human here and simpler than a game of Hopscotch, and just because I'm no longer human and have been reduced to a hologram _doesn't mean I can't feel_!"

Kryten felt like crying now. He wanted to wail about his guilt chip being run faster than parents after Tickle-Me-Elmo, but he just couldn't do it.

"We're getting some more lift," Holly quietly announced.

But Rimmer was on a roll now, and he cared not to stop.

"You think I couldn't _feel _it when my father refused to acknowledge to people that I was his son? How do you think I felt when my mother refused to let me come to my brother's wedding because I was just a technician? How do you think I felt when I _died_? How do you think I feel about the fact that I have to live with the fact that I'm just a _ghost _of my former self?"

Lister had managed to haul himself upright, but continued to rub his nose tenderly.

"Rimmer…"

But Rimmer rounded on him.

"How do you think I felt when I trust you never to mention a sort of soup again, and you immediately say 'Super'?"

Lister winced again, this time not from his sore nose.

"How do you think I felt when this planet, which is exists in my mind, as you kindly pointed out, ruined _Better Than Life _for you? How do you think I felt when you called me a bozo because of this self-loathing?"

Now Lister felt his own personal guilt begin to flow through him.

"How do you think I felt when I opened up the chest and saw a guitar-shaped hole in the back of it?"

"I'm _sorry_, alright?!" Lister wailed, that one finally tipping him over the edge.

"Sorry? Oh, isn't that just _lovely_? Sorry! The man is _sorry_! How lovely! Well, guess what, you sad old used tampon of a human being, but that's too little too late!"

And he punctuated this with a solid kick in Lister's shin, only because he couldn't get a clear shot at his face.

"Hey, we're nearly clear," Holly announced, not sure if Rimmer was finished yet.

There was a heavy silence.

Cat and Kryten looked a little hesitant to go and check, as Rimmer continued to glare at Lister, huddled on the ground.

"Oh, get us the hell out of here," he said, waving them off.

Without missing a beat, Cat and Kryten fled the Mid-Section and scampered into the cockpit.

As he listened to the sounds of the ship beginning to take off, Rimmer tiredly sat down.

He knew why they were free now.

Whether they knew it or not, this terrible plan of theirs had worked.

Oh sure, it had gone tits up as far as they were concerned, but it had worked far more than they could've hoped.

Rimmer had stood up for himself.

He'd finally found his inner-strength and had fought back.

And he felt better because of it.

He glanced at Lister, who was still cradling his side in agony, not looking at him due to fear of being hit again.

Rimmer knew his body would vanish and he'd once again be a hologram as soon as they left the planet's atmosphere, so he'd better get this in quickly.

He placed a hand on Lister's shoulder.

Lister briefly tensed, but when he looked up, he saw no more anger in Rimmer's eyes. In fact, he looked grateful.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Lister was _very _bewildered by this, but he simply nodded in return.

Rimmer stood up and left the room, heading down to the engine rooms, leaving Lister alone.

They both had a lot to think about.

**THE END**

* * *

**Author's Notes: **_A whole bunch of frustration vented into a single fic. _Terrorform _could've been a great character episode, but it didn't really establish anything, which I think is one of the show's biggest flaws: the apparent insistence that Grant Naylor gave that Rimmer didn't deserve to be happy. That may not be what they meant, but it's the impression I got, especially during Series V._

_Read and Review_


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